THE NAKED MOLE-RAT
(C)1991 Alan M. Schwartz
The neo-Luddite Greens and their conservationist toadies exhort
us to renounce the future. While they rummage about in their
navels seeking political ascendancy, these advocates of naturally
wormy intestines whine about the destruction of habitats and the
extinction of species. Joining the ranks of eminent biological
rubbish like the snail darter and the Furbish lousewort is
SCIENCE 253(5021) 803 (1991),"The Biology of the Naked Mole-Rat"
[Three quotes follow. They underscore the institutionalized
drivel which is destroying First World civilization.]
"Sabre-toothed sausages. Protuberant teeth used to excavate
tunnel systems that can exceed 2 kilometers in length and a
virtually hairless body combined with an inability to
thermoregulate endothermically are only two of the exceptional
characteristics exhibited by these subterranean inhabitants.
"Naked mole-rat colonies are made up of a single, large, long-
lived female and her infants, several breeding males, and many
(usually about 70 but sometimes over 200) non-breeding adults of
both sexes that perform much of the colony work and seem to be
classifiable into several castes. Such characteristics bear
striking resemblance to... diploid termites.
"What mammal: Is capable of prodigious digging feats with its
teeth? Exhibits nipple development by non-breeding adults,
including males, in the presence of a pregnant female? Begs for
feces from its colony mates? Has females that are often twice
the mass of adult males? Exhibits poikiothermy? Is so ugly that
it is beautiful?
[It is either a Gay Rights Parade, an MIT panty raid, President
Bush's inner circle of advisors, or THE NAKED MOLE-RAT!]
The era of rational discourse is long past. Outrageous claims,
and demands for further Federal funding, are supported upon foot-
thick stacks of computer output. Impossibly complex models,
complex beyond criticism, are born of the numerical simulation
of clots of differential equations. The artificers of virtual
reality electronically extend their hands in greeting, secretly
remapping tactile perceptions to their genitalia, living in dread
that someone might successfully call their bluff, and
clandestinely chortling when we do not.
A certain Iraqi dictator, one Saddam Hussein, unbridled with the
restraints imposed by popularity polls, the electorate, or
Western morality, deigned to demolish the official truths about
1)Nuclear Winter
2)Air pollution
3)Acid rain
4)The Greenhouse Effect
5)Gargantuan oil slicks
by demonstrating that even the most massively heinous ecological
travesties simultaneously enacted upon a "fragile habitat" have
no demonstrable persistent effect, even over the single year in
which they are accomplished.
NASA spent at least $2.6 billion on the Hubble Space Telescope,
the largest, most precise orbiting reflective optic in history --
shaped to the wrong curvature. Six gyroscopes stabilize the
Hubble; three are necessary for its operation. After one year,
three are dead and a fourth is ailing. The solar panels flex
with temperature changes, distorting images and progressively
destroying electrical connections. The main antenna hits its
connecting cable, limiting its movement. $2.6 billion would have
purchased a large portion of the Roman Empire, or any of its
predecessors in their entirety. We could have drawn some benefit
of it had it been left in our wallets.
Corruption, incompetence, bureaucratic propagation, officialdom's
flagrant abuse of power, expropriation and liquidation of private
assets, perfidious betrayal of the public fiduciary trust,
fabrication and enforcement of quasi-religious moral verities...
are the bulwark foundations of human civilization. Each society
has, in turn, grown too heavy to support its own weight. It
died. The survivors were just that little bit more evolved and
robust, having survived selection against heavy odds. They were
more than ready to seize their opportunity for getting a piece of
the action, starting the cycle anew.
I smell a naked mole-rat. My weapons are clean and my ammo is
fresh. Will you challenge my ecological vigor?